DraftKings Diary | Buys, Sells, and What to Look for on DraftKings Reignmakers for Conference Championship Weekend
In the DraftKings Diary, each week Lucky Trader's Jason Rouslin will walk through his buys, sells, and team lookahead to give you insights from an experienced DraftKings Reignmakers player.
Check out Jason's full portfolio with the Lucky Trader Reignmakers Portfolio Tool.
A fantastic year of football and the inaugural season of DraftKings Reignmakers is winding down. But, before we turn our attention elsewhere and what burn mechanics may be offered, we have one of the biggest slates of the season, with some of the biggest contests! From REIGNMAKER through CORE $10,000 is the lowest amount being offered to first, with $100,000 being offered to first place ELITE contest winner. On top of that nice slate distribution, DraftKings is also offering a Showdown slate for each of the Conference Championship games, providing a nice utility for all the cards on each team, not just the obvious ones.
In this article, I’ll take you through my plan of action for the week and what changes I may look into making for my main lineups. Since only four teams are competing, I expect serial numbers to really matter, especially in a purely optimal setting. Getting different and mixing in non-optimally projected plays will be one way to try and get unique and score the big prize this week. Let’s dig in.
Wild Card Weekend Diary
If you missed last week's article, where I discussed my strategy up to this point in the season, check it out here. Interested in seeing what makes up the 1,500+ NFT card collection? Check it out here!
Wild Card Weekend Top Lineup & Contest
Contest: CORE Fiat Frenzy | Sunday Slate
Lineup:
- QB: Dak Prescott
- RB: Christian McCaffrey
- WR: Ja'Marr Chase
- WR: CeeDee Lamb
- Flex: Joe Mixon
Last week's first slate was one I was very much excited about. After Travis Kelce went off in the first game of the day, I felt even better about it given I had two of his ELITE cards. But I just couldn’t find the correct pieces around him from the second game even though my portfolio had the winning combo with a low serial.
I had been pounding the table about buying Kenneth Gainwell for a few weeks and it paid off after last week's performance. Had I paired Kelce up with Jalen Hurts, Dallas Goedert, DeVonta Smith and Gainwell, I’d be at least $20,000 richer. It’s always fun to play Monday morning quarterback.
Onto the Sunday slate, where I wasn’t as excited about the prospects of a huge return. Much to my dismay, I decided to fade one team all year, at least at the ELITE, and that was Cincinnati where I only hold a Joe Burrow No. 23 ELITE.
However, outside of the ELITE tier, my portfolio did have a good stack of cards and gave me a chance to win the CORE contest heading into the second game. As Dak Prescott and Dallas were down by 7 with just a few minutes left, I needed only 8 more points from him to win the largest CORE cotest. But it wasn’t to be and my team settled for a 29th place finish.
Overall the slate yielded about $1,000. But, given some of the purchases I made during the week, I’ll still need a similar return this week to break even for the year.
Divisional Round Buys & Sells
In Week 18, two weeks ago, I had a bad start to the slate and knew I wasn't going to be able to use Joe Burrow’s ELITE card that I had, so I tried to sell it. I put it up for $520 and just left it there. Well, I had forgotten about it, and when Cincy took a big lead late in the game last week, people started sweeping the floor of all of his cards. After getting the notification that mine had sold, I went right to the RARE level and picked up a No. 3 serial for $150. While I won’t be able to use him with my low serial Chase RARE card, it wasn’t a bad trade given the price of each has at least doubled, if not tripled. I also added a lower serial Joe Mixon RARE card.
Conference Championship Lookahead
Slate No. 1: Main Slate
Slate No. 2: San Francisco at Philadelphia
Slate No. 3: Cincinnati at Kansas City
Divisional Round Targets & Strategy
With only four teams left, the optimal lineups and builds become quite easy to digest. If one has an optimal lineup that has a low combined serial number, I think it’s fine to play this week, but for those of us that don’t, I’m going to go through a couple of picks while presenting a nice breakdown of how much each player is going for in the marketplace at the ELITE level right now. That’s where we will start:
Going from top to bottom, we’ll start off with the only position in which there are just four players to choose from, quarterback. With both Mahomes and Hurts having SuperStar status, it sets up nicely for a contrarian-based slate.
The setup ensures a ton of Burrow and McCaffrey stacks will be present this week, so beating that duo is the key to winning the slate. Hurts will be my primary focus in "different" builds with Mahomes getting even more contrarian lineups, leaving me with Brock Purdy at the CORE and RARE tier. I may invest in one RARE card this week and play at the ELITE level. Given the prize pool for both this week and for the Super Bowl, the floor of $90 for a RARE card seems like decent value, especially a lower serial. He also happens to be the only RARE or above card, my portfolio doesn’t own from all of the San Francisco offensive players.
Playing either Hurts or Mahomes at QB will leave a bit of a problem at the RB outside of Joe Mixon. Mixon ran well and was featured in the passing game quite a bit in the Divisional Round matchup with Buffalo making him the clear No. 2 RB on the slate. He and Hurts will likely be popular stacks this week given their projections and certainly playing him with Purdy and McCaffrey will be the most unique combination of these six players.
The other two teams use a committee for the position, with KC’s committee getting even deeper with the possible return of Clyde-Edwards Helaire this week. Unfortunately, for the remaining seven or so RBs left on the slate, it is likely going to come down to who falls into the endzone. Looking specifically at an overall value metric compared to their price versus projected points, Kenneth Gainwell is the top value and his ELITE cards have a floor of around $40. Putting him with Hurts and not using Mixon could be a solid contrarian start for the slate.
Lastly, onto the WR/T position, where there are plenty of high-quality options to choose from this weekend. Travis Kelce will be my primary target and the second guy in a given lineup behind the SuperStar. While going contrarian in a two-game slate is imperative, there needs to be a balance between sacrificing optimal plays and playing them. So in a five-person lineup, I’ll be targeting at least three “optimal plays."
For purposes of this slate, anyone projected above 15 points (6 position players + 4 QBs) would be considered an “optimal” play. Next, I’ll turn to George Kittle or Dallas Goedert in an effort to get a bit unique using the two tight-end stack. Doing this should allow me to add in Chase at the WR position and a contrarian RB. There are a few fliers for the slate as well, and in terms of value, Quez Watkins has the best, based on his projected points and card prices, but interesting to note Zach Pascal had more snaps last week (22 to 21) as Philadelphia used Watkins in a more big play, long ball situation and Pascal in run blocking situations.
That’s it for now! Good luck this week!
